Davila Gives It His All but Falls Short in Title Try Against Lora

This was about bravery, courage and an indomitable spirit in a 5-foot 2-inch 118-pound body, but not of victory.

Pomona’s Albert Davila, 33, fighting with streams of blood pouring down his face from cuts over both eyes, lost what was probably his final challenge at a world bantamweight championship.

World Boxing Council champion Miguel Lora, 26, of Colombia, was the winner on a unanimous decision at the Forum Monday night, but immediately after the 12-round bout, there were indications the result might be subject to review.

The California Athletic Commission confiscated two water bottles and a packet of what appeared to be sugar from Lora’s corner during the fifth round. Commission officer Marty Denkin explained there was reason to believe there was sugar or fructose in the water.

Lora himself said afterward it was imported bottled water.

“WBC rules prohibit any boxer from drinking anything but plain water between rounds,” Denkin said. “We’re going to send the contents of the bottles and the packet to a lab.”

The fight began slowly, with Lora posing and smiling during most of the first four rounds. Lora, who picked up the pace in the middle rounds, cut Davila over the left eye in the sixth and over the right eye in the ninth.

By the end of the 12th round, Davila was virtually covered with his own blood, as was Lora.

The added feature on the card, seen by heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and 7,328 other spectators in the Forum, was a cooly executed, bloodless victory. J.C. Superstar, as Mexico’s Julio Cesar Chavez is known these days, improved to 58-0, 60-0 or 60-1, depending on your record-keeper, when he stopped Yogi Buchanan of Berkeley, Mo., in the third round.

Chavez, the World Boxing Assn. lightweight champion, was appearing in an over-the-weight, non-title bout. Chavez weighed 140 pounds and earned $50,000 in what was essentially a brisk workout.

Davila, who earned $25,000 (Lora made $75,000), did not announce his retirement afterward.

“This is a bad time to ask me, (about retiring),” he said. “I’m very disappointed I didn’t win this fight. The way I feel now, I would say yes, but tomorrow I may feel better and say no.”

Davila, in his seventh try at a world bantamweight championship--he won two of them--seemed to win the first two rounds. Then the taller Lora, fighting at first from long range, gradually turned up the heat.

One judge scored the fight 118-113, the other two 117-111, in favor of Lora. The Times scored it 118-111 for Lora.

Lora discovered in the third round that he could move in close on Davila at center-ring and pound him.

By the end of the fourth, Lora had taken command.

The crowd sent up a “Dah-veeela! . . . Dah-veeela! . . . “ chant midway through the fifth round, but his cause seemed almost lost by then.

Key word: Almost. All the way to the final bell, Davila never stopped throwing punches, never slackened his charge, never sounded retreat.

Davila’s cut above his left eye became so severe that when the bell sounded to begin the eighth round, the stream was halfway down his left cheek by the time he reached center ring for the first punches.

The cuts--there appeared to be at least three by the final bell--never flowed directly into either eye, however, and referee John Thomas never gave an indication he was on the verge of stopping it.

A spectator tried to, however. Near the end of the ninth, a white towel sailed into the ring, which at first seemed to come from Davila’s corner. Lora’s cornermen poured into the ring and began victory dances. Denkin, who had a busy night from his ringside seat, chased down the spectator who had thrown the towel and held him with a headlock until ushers arrived.

The interruption only prolonged the inevitable.

Chavez said afterward his victory was his last tuneup before his Oct. 29 Las Vegas Hilton showdown against countryman Jose Luis Ramirez, the WBC champion.

“I am going directly to Ramirez . . . no more fights,” Chavez said.

“I started slowly, then picked up speed tonight.”

Of the huge ovation he received before and after the bout, he said: “I wish my fight with Ramirez was in Los Angeles, because I feel so much the warmth of the people when I fight here.”

Chavez insisted at the weigh-in Monday that his record was 59-0, but most boxing sources pegged it at 57-0. But Dean Lohuis of Irvine, who maintains records of hundreds of fighters for promoters, says Chavez suffered a 1981 disqualification defeat in his hometown, Culiacan, Mexico, on a head butt.

But the Culiacan boxing commission, Lohuis says, later reversed the result.

Chavez began cautiously against Buchanan. But the end began shortly before the end of the first round when Chavez dug two vicious left hooks into Buchanan’s ribs.

Buchanan then took a pounding to the ribs, yet landed frequent scoring left hooks to Chavez’s head. Early in the third, Chavez landed nine unanswered punches to the head and body. Seconds after Buchanan’s last feeble flurry, a huge left hook by Chavez drove Buchanan into the ropes, where he held up two hands in a surrender gesture, and referee Chuck Hassett obliged him.

In another bout, former WBA bantamweight champion Wilfredo Vasquez of Puerto Rico lost a unanimous decision to Tijuana’s Paul Perez (48-1).